Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (best free ebook reader for android txt) 📕

It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage that the largest body, which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all the rioters who had been conspicuous in any of their former proceedings; all those whom they recommended as daring hands and fit for the work; all those whose companions had been taken in the riots; and a great number of people who were relatives or friends of felons in the jail. This last class included, not only the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains in London, but some who were comparatively innocent. There was more than one woman there, disguised in man’s attire, and bent upon the rescue of a child or brother. There were the two sons of a man who lay under sentence of death, and who was to be executed along with three others, on the next day but one. There was a great parry of boys whose fellow-pickpockets were in the prison; and at the skirts of all, a score of miserable women, outcasts from the world, seeking to release some other fallen creature as miserable as themselves, or moved by a general sympathy perhaps—God knows—with all who were without hope, and wretched.

Old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; sledge-hammers, knives, axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butchers’ shops; a forest of iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling the walls, each carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches; tow smeared with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves roughly plucked from fence and paling; and even crutches taken from crippled beggars in the streets; composed their arms. When all was ready, Hugh and Dennis, with Simon Tappertit between them, led the way. Roaring and chafing like an angry sea, the crowd pressed after them.

Instead of going straight down Holborn to the jail, as all expected, their leaders took the way to Clerkenwell, and pouring down a quiet street, halted before a locksmith’s house—the Golden Key.

‘Beat at the door,’ cried Hugh to the men about him. ‘We want one of his craft to-night. Beat it in, if no one answers.’

The shop was shut. Both door and shutters were of a strong and sturdy kind, and they knocked without effect. But the impatient crowd raising a cry of ‘Set fire to the house!’ and torches being passed to the front, an upper window was thrown open, and the stout old locksmith stood before them.

‘What now, you villains!’ he demanded. ‘Where is my daughter?’

‘Ask no questions of us, old man,’ retorted Hugh, waving his comrades to be silent, ‘but come down, and bring the tools of your trade. We want you.’

‘Want me!’ cried the locksmith, glancing at the regimental dress he wore: ‘Ay, and if some that I could name possessed the hearts of mice, ye should have had me long ago. Mark me, my lad—and you about him do the same. There are a score among ye whom I see now and know, who are dead men from this hour. Begone! and rob an undertaker’s while you can! You’ll want some coffins before long.’

‘Will you come down?’ cried Hugh.

‘Will you give me my daughter, ruffian?’ cried the locksmith.

‘I know nothing of her,’ Hugh rejoined. ‘Burn the door!’

‘Stop!’ cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them falter— presenting, as he spoke, a gun. ‘Let an old man do that. You can spare him better.’

The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down before the door, rose hastily at these words, and fell back. The locksmith ran his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon levelled at the threshold of his house. It had no other rest than his shoulder, but was as steady as the house itself.

‘Let the man who does it, take heed to his prayers,’ he said firmly; ‘I warn him.’

Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping forward with an oath, when he was arrested by a shrill and piercing shriek, and, looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the house- top.

There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice cried, ‘Is Simmun below!’ At the same moment a lean neck was stretched over the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in the gathering gloom of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, ‘Oh! dear gentlemen, let me hear Simmuns’s answer from his own lips. Speak to me, Simmun. Speak to me!’

Mr Tappertit, who was not at all flattered by this compliment, looked up, and bidding her hold her peace, ordered her to come down and open the door, for they wanted her master, and would take no denial.

‘Oh good gentlemen!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my own precious, precious Simmun—’

‘Hold your nonsense, will you!’ retorted Mr Tappertit; ‘and come down and open the door.—G. Varden, drop that gun, or it will be worse for you.’

‘Don’t mind his gun,’ screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I poured a mug of table-beer right down the barrel.’

The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a roar of laughter.

‘It wouldn’t go off, not if you was to load it up to the muzzle,’ screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I’m locked up in the front attic, through the little door on the right hand when you think you’ve got to the very top of the stairs—and up the flight of corner steps, being careful not to knock your heads against the rafters, and not to tread on one side in case you should fall into the two-pair bedroom through the lath and plasture, which do not bear, but the contrairy. Simmun and gentlemen, I’ve been locked up here for safety, but my endeavours has always been, and always will be, to be on the right side—the blessed side and to prenounce the Pope of Babylon, and all her inward and her outward workings, which is Pagin. My sentiments is of little consequences, I know,’ cried Miggs, with additional shrillness, ‘for my positions is but a servant, and as sich, of humilities, still I gives expressions to my feelings, and places my reliances on them which entertains my own opinions!’

Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss Miggs after she had made her first announcement in relation to the gun, the crowd raised a ladder against the window where the locksmith stood, and notwithstanding that he closed, and fastened, and defended it manfully, soon forced an entrance by shivering the glass and breaking in the frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, he found himself defenceless, in the midst of a furious crowd, which overflowed the room and softened off in a confused heap of faces at the door and window.

They were very wrathful with him (for he had wounded two men), and even called out to those in front, to bring him forth and hang him on a lamp-post. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from Hugh and Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tappertit, who confronted him.

‘You have robbed me of my daughter,’ said the locksmith, ‘who is far dearer to me than my life; and you may take my life, if you will. I bless God that I have been enabled to keep my wife free of this scene; and that He has made me a man who will not ask mercy at such hands as yours.’

‘And a wery game old gentleman you are,’ said Mr Dennis, approvingly; ‘and you express yourself like a man. What’s the odds, brother, whether it’s a lamp-post to-night, or a feather- bed ten year to come, eh?’

The locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned no other answer.

‘For my part,’ said the hangman, who particularly favoured the lamp-post suggestion, ‘I honour your principles. They’re mine exactly. In such sentiments as them,’ and here he emphasised his discourse with an oath, ‘I’m ready to meet you or any man halfway.— Have you got a bit of cord anywheres handy? Don’t put yourself out of the way, if you haven’t. A handkecher will do.’

‘Don’t be a fool, master,’ whispered Hugh, seizing Varden roughly by the shoulder; ‘but do as you’re bid. You’ll soon hear what you’re wanted for. Do it!’

‘I’ll do nothing at your request, or that of any scoundrel here,’ returned the locksmith. ‘If you want any service from me, you may spare yourselves the pains of telling me what it is. I tell you, beforehand, I’ll do nothing for you.’

Mr Dennis was so affected by this constancy on the part of the staunch old man, that he protested—almost with tears in his eyes— that to baulk his inclinations would be an act of cruelty and hard dealing to which he, for one, never could reconcile his conscience. The gentleman, he said, had avowed in so many words that he was ready for working off; such being the case, he considered it their duty, as a civilised and enlightened crowd, to work him off. It was not often, he observed, that they had it in their power to accommodate themselves to the wishes of those from whom they had the misfortune to differ. Having now found an individual who expressed a desire which they could reasonably indulge (and for himself he was free to confess that in his opinion that desire did honour to his feelings), he hoped they would decide to accede to his proposition before going any further. It was an experiment which, skilfully and dexterously performed, would be over in five minutes, with great comfort and satisfaction to all parties; and though it did not become him (Mr Dennis) to speak well of himself he trusted he might be allowed to say that he had practical knowledge of the subject, and, being naturally of an obliging and friendly disposition, would work the gentleman off with a deal of pleasure.

These remarks, which were addressed in the midst of a frightful din and turmoil to those immediately about him, were received with great favour; not so much, perhaps, because of the hangman’s eloquence, as on account of the locksmith’s obstinacy. Gabriel was in imminent peril, and he knew it; but he preserved a steady